Maui delays decision
on proposed fowl banOpponents argue that roosters
are important to their island lifestyle
WAILUKU >> Maui County lawmakers delayed a decision on whether to ban roosters and other loud fowl from residential areas after listening to emotional pleas yesterday.
"To completely ban it, it's a very harsh thing to do," said Alton De Gama, a Lahaina resident who raises chickens. "Take away our lifestyle, what we have? Nothing. It's going to affect the local people."
De Gama and several other residents said raising chickens was part of the plantation lifestyle that has grown into a cultural tradition.
Under the proposed ordinance introduced by Councilman Robert Carroll, the county would ban keeping live chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks and peacocks in districts zoned as residential, including townhouses and apartments.
The Council Committee on Planning and Land Use asked staff to research fowl-noise ordinances in other counties.
Some residents and Council members noted that no public meetings on the bill had been held on Lanai and Molokai.
A petition with more than 360 signatures opposing the bill had been sent from Molokai to the Council. Another petition in opposition of the bill had several hundred signatures.
A number of residents supporting the bill said passage of the ordinance would solve a noise problem that has created health problems related to stress.
Marilyn Chapman, a Maui resident, said her husband's health has suffered because of sleeping problems since a person moved into the neighborhood with roosters four years ago.
"It's gotten to the point now where my husband has high blood pressure," she said.
